The operator of the state’s high-voltage electricity network said the existing power station site at Port Augusta, which is slated for closure, would be suitable for a nuclear reactor.

ElectraNet executive manager asset management Rainer Korte also said this was among four suitable sites in the network – the others in Adelaide and the Hills. Those in Adelaide were unlikely to be used for a nuclear power plant, he said.

Mr Korte was responding to a question by Chad Jacobi, counsel assisting the Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission, about where a 1000-megawatt nuclear power plant could be connected to the SA electricity network. He said: “One of them is at Davenport, which is near Port Augusta, which is where essentially the current northern power station is connected.

“The other two are in Adelaide, in the Adelaide metropolitan area where you arenot likely to see any major development of a power station for environmental reasons and others.

“And then Tungkillo, which is in the Adelaide Hills, is also a very strong connection point on our network, where . . . we estimate you could inject up to about 1000 megawatts.”

The royal commission, headed by former governor Kevin Scarce, is conducting public sessions to inform a final report due by May next year. It is investigating the potential for SA to be involved in nuclear power, waste storage, enrichment and further exploration and milling.

An Adelaide Hills site described as in the Mt Lofty Ranges or just east was previously identified as a possible place for a nuclear reactor in a 1997 federal Cabinet submission, leaked in 2006. Sites at Woomera and Olympic Dam also were among 14 places across Australia detailed in the submission, prepared for then science minister Peter McGauran.

In other royal commission evidence on Friday afternoon, SA Power Networks senior manager Mark Vincent said forecasts predicted solar energy would be used by two-thirds of SA households in about 20 years. In the same period, it was predicted about 100,000 electric cars would be using SA roads – for which Premier Jay Weatherill is planning new road laws.